Trump: "Xi Jinping to visit the White House around year-end…our relationship is very good"

U.S. President Donald Trump said that Chinese President Xi Jinping would come to the White House around year-end.

In an NBC interview aired on the 9th (local time), Trump said, "I will visit China in April," and made the remarks. NBC said the interview was recorded on the 4th, the day the leaders of the U.S. and China spoke by phone.

Trump said, "Our relationship is very good," adding, "The U.S. is doing well, and President Xi seemed surprised."

Asked what the most important topic was, Trump replied, "The economy, and the relationship between us and China."

On tariffs, he repeated his longstanding claims. Trump said, "China is paying a lot of tariffs. It didn’t used to. I imposed tariffs on China, and tariffs make our country rich. Our country has brought in tens of millions of dollars, trillions of dollars."

He also stressed, "With the threat of tariffs, all of these countries are backing down to us."

Asked whether he had used OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, Trump said, "I haven’t used them, but I know everything," adding, "Artificial intelligence (AI) is important and will probably become more important than the internet—than anything." He also said, "We are far ahead of China—of everyone."

Trump also expressed confidence in the U.S. economy. Asked where the U.S. stands in the 'Trump economy,' he said it is already there and that he is very proud. He said, "It will get better this year," adding, "$18 trillion in investment has come into the U.S., and thousands of companies are building factories across the country," and that the factories would come online "within a year to a year and a half."

Trump said in November last year that he had invited Xi to visit the U.S. as a state guest sometime this year. Last month, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said the timing of Trump’s invitation to Xi would be August or September.

The biggest focus of Trump’s planned April trip to China is whether a 'big deal' covering the economy and security can be reached. Attention is also on whether Taiwan and North Korea will be put on the summit agenda, and whether contacts between North Korean and U.S. leaders could take place on the occasion of Trump’s travel in Asia.

U.S.-China relations deteriorated last year as each side imposed high tariffs and retaliatory duties, but have since been patched up through a truce under a provisional trade agreement. Ahead of his trip to China, Trump has been managing the situation by saying he has a good relationship with Xi.

Yonghyun Shin, Hankyung.com reporter yonghyun@hankyung.com